RateCalc – Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator

Free, static, browser-only calculator that turns a freelancer's income goal into the hourly / daily / weekly / monthly rate they actually need to charge — after taxes, business expenses, a profit buffer and all the hours they can't bill.

Live URL: https://ratecalc-tool.vercel.app/ (placeholder — replace after deploy)

Primary keyword: freelance hourly rate calculator.

Features

Free

• Live recalculation on every input: take-home goal, currency (USD/EUR/GBP/CAD/AUD/INR), expenses, tax rate, buffer margin, billable hours/day (slider + number), days/week, weeks off.
• Derived non-billable share of an 8-hour day.
• Outputs: minimum hourly rate, daily, weekly, monthly revenue target, annual gross revenue, billable hours/year, "real" hourly (take-home ÷ all hours worked).
• Hand-built inline SVG breakdown bar: take-home / taxes / expenses / buffer.
• Project quote helper: estimated hours × rate × rush multiplier → fixed price + value-based range (×1.2–1.5).
• Copy summary, Share link (inputs encoded in the query string, read on load), Reset.
• Inputs persist in localStorage; URL params override.
• 1 saved rate profile.

Pro (one-time, lifetime; gated with isPro())

• Unlimited named rate profiles (load / delete).
• Printable rate report (PDF via window.print() with dedicated print CSS).
• Compare two profiles side-by-side.

Also: dark/light theme, SEO content + FAQ with JSON-LD (WebApplication + FAQPage), privacy + terms pages, AdSense slots, optional affiliate partner section.

Formula

preTax   = income / (1 − taxRate)
taxes    = preTax − income
base     = preTax + expenses
buffer   = base × margin
gross    = base + buffer
billable = hoursPerDay × daysPerWeek × (52 − weeksOff)
hourly   = gross / billable

Run locally

npx serve .

Then open the printed URL (usually http://localhost:3000). No build step, no dependencies.

Deploy

Deploy the folder as-is to Vercel (vercel.json enables clean URLs and security headers). After the first deploy, replace the ratecalc-tool.vercel.app placeholder with the real domain:

grep -rl "ratecalc-tool.vercel.app" . | xargs sed -i 's/ratecalc-tool.vercel.app/ratecalc.example.com/g'

Monetization setup

All switches live in config.js.

1. Google AdSense – once the site is approved, set ADSENSE_CLIENT: "ca-pub-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX". The three .ad-slot placeholders (sidebar-1, sidebar-2, below-tool) are filled automatically by monetize.js. Optionally create matching ad units and put their IDs in each slot's data-slot.
2. Pro checkout – create a one-time product (Lemon Squeezy, Gumroad or a Stripe Payment Link) and set PRO_CHECKOUT_URL. Set PRO_PRICE to the displayed price. The license gate in monetize.js accepts any key of 8+ characters — replace activateLicense with a real license check (e.g. Lemon Squeezy License API) before going live.
3. Google Analytics 4 – set GA_ID: "G-XXXXXXXXXX". Events tracked: tool_view, copy, share, reset, save_profile, load_profile, compare, report, pro_click, begin_checkout, affiliate_click.
4. Affiliate links – fill AFFILIATE_LINKS.wise, .payoneer, .deel with your referral URLs. Partner cards render only for non-empty links (rel="sponsored noopener"); the whole "Get paid faster, worldwide" section stays hidden if all are empty.

File structure

index.html     main tool page (SEO complete, JSON-LD, FAQ, printable report block)
styles.css     _shared/base.css + app-specific rules
app.js         calculator logic, profiles, compare, report, partners
monetize.js    shared theme / toast / GA / AdSense / Pro helpers (copy of _shared)
config.js      window.APP_CONFIG
privacy.html   privacy policy
terms.html     terms of use
robots.txt, sitemap.xml, vercel.json, favicon.svg, .gitignore

Disclaimer

Outputs are estimates and not financial or tax advice.